Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Grammie Camps on Fast Forward!

I am waiting to post about my exciting experience with the arrival of the baby in London until Charity has a chance to tell the story and introduce that little guy to her readers.

I arrived at the airport in SLC from London just after midnight on the early morning of Monday, July18th to the arms of my best man…a guy who had been holding down the fort for 13 days, the amazing….Grandfather! I am so lucky to be married to that man! I slept for a few hours, headed to Costco to pick up some reunion supplies and we took off for the lake. It was so great to see everybody, most of whom had been there for many days! I was greeted with so many hugs and a welcoming sign over the door.

Usually I have an evening an overnight and a morning with my darling Grammie Campers but this year everything was drastically abbreviated. I got there in the early evening in time to start the first Grammie Camp with our five oldest grandkids. We sorely missed our oldest grandson Max who is on a mission for our church in Taiwan nd his darling sister Elle who was at summer school at BYU until the reunion!

I was amazed at how qukckly those they could all repeat Helaman 5:12, my favorite scripture and how quickly they ate the gummy bears that they got for their efforts! I had also asked them to be ready to tell a story about one of our ancestors and hear their “highs and lows” for the year which is always an interesting peek into their lives that I might otherwise be unaware of.

Then we piled into Shawni’s car and headed to Merlin’s for hamburgers, fries and shakes and arrived at the Picklville Playhouse just in time to see our favorite new show created by Juanito Bandito! That amazing star also writes the script and music every year and is quite a dancer! It’s always fun to see what he cooks up, but mostly it was just great to be with these great kids! They are exceptional tennagers who are going to make some great contributions to this world!

I’m not sure if the light did something to Isaac’s nose (on the right) or if he did. Sorry buddy!

Before we took the traditional picture with this mustached guy, we laughed at the comment Bandito made when he saw Ana (on the right) ….. “Holy Hair”!

Wow! I love these kids!

We skpped the overnight! I was a little jet-lagged!

The next day I had so much fun in three more short sessions with the rest of the Grammie Camp kids! We combined groups as well as consolidating time! In about 2 1/2 hours we got through about the same fun little routine with each group: Highs and lows, scripture recitaition and some ancestor stories from them as well as a few from me

After the ancestor stories with group 2, we went on a scavenger hunt to find the graves of the people we had been talking about, many of whom are buried in the Bloomington Cemetery, which is about 25 minutes from where we were.

We found my parents’ graves and to the kids’ delight, the sprinklers were watering the area of their graves. They had so much fun dodging the water and finding the names of the great people we had just been talking about.

If you asked any of these kids, they would know the story of this incredible grandmother who lost five of her six children from the time she joined our church in Denmark until she arrived in America. They know what happened and how she got to Bloomington. They even know that she had three more children when she arrived in Bloomington, the last of whom was their great great grandfather “Freddy”. Whether they will remember that story until next year is the question .

Here lie my grandparents and an uncle who died of appenticidis at age 18.

An hour later Grammie Camp #3 was in process. Sadly I only took two pictures and I was the only one with a camera! Someone took a picture just before we left but I don’t remember who it was so I’ll add it later for the sake of history!

But here is this adorable group.What a bunch of cuties! Donuts anyone? Creaive Elsie always has a “costume”: up her sleeve (or in her hair). Cubby on the left is named after my family…. Jacobson, but we call him Cubby for the cub sound in the middle of that name. I love it! Emmeline, next to him is an excellent violinist and keeps us all hopping. Little Peter on the right came to Grammie Camp for his first time and got a special “welcome to Grammie Camp gift” which was a miniature Paddington Bear. He looks pretty happy about it don’t you think?

Here’s the rest of this adorable group…Poem, who was also a first-timer (in the center) is clutching her Paddington Bear, flanked by loveable Lucy on the left, who is a magnificent writer and lovely Lyla on the right who is about to be baptized on Sunday.

We went through the same little routine with these great kids. I always learn so much from their “highs and lows” and have to laugh about their renditions of their favorite ancestor stories! What fun! They could also do the first sentence of the scripture but Lucy had asked for a reward that didn’t involve candy since she wanted to cut back on sugar (in a text on her mother’s phone). These kids got dollars for their efforts!

The 4th group were actually pre-Grammie Campers since they aren’t officially Grammie Campers until they are five. We had just an hour with these last six. Thank goodness for the two dads who joined to help me and take pictures!

The girls were thrilled with doing a dance to glorious classical music at the Lighthouse. The boys….not so much!

The boys were thrilled with the little wind up cars I brought them from London. The girls…not so much:

Ready for a race:

We had just one short little ancestor session, blew a few bubbles and called it good! Thanks Tal and Eli for helping me pull this off!

5 comments:

I look forward to these reunion posts every year. We have gleaned out many great ideas for our own family reunions. Dearly love the ancestor story idea, gravestones, scripture memorization and the dancing. I have all grand daughters, thus far, and costumes and dancing is very high on the "fun" list of things we do. Thank you very much.

What an exhausting time. I used to look forward to nice relaxing vacations at the beach with my extended family. Just lying on the beach, no schedule, just getting to "be". This sounds like the exact opposite.